LODGING: Rock On

 

On a sunny morning at rock hall, the upscale, Gilded Age B&B in Colebrook, Connecticut, Michael Somers is serving breakfast, delivering tray after tray of goodies to fortunate guests sipping fresh-squeezed orange juice in the sun-kissed, wood-paneled dining room. In high summer, the genial innkeeper’s bright-yellow Bermuda shorts, loose cotton shirt blooming with tropical exotics, and ear-to-ear grin give him the appearance of a charmingly offbeat family retainer, unfailingly affable, albeit slightly dotty with enthusiasm.

 

In 2005, Somers, a Wall Street bond trader; his wife, Stella Somers; and their teenage daughter, Sabrina (a downhill ski racer who favors nearby Butternut in Great Barrington, Massachusetts), purchased Rock Hall and its twenty-three acres as a second home. Three years later, Michael (now a former Wall Street bond trader) and Stella converted the historic estate—one of few mansions in the Northeast designed by renowned architectural designer Addison Mizner—into what Stella calls a “resort-style bed-and-breakfast.” Having turned their largest investment—a circa 1912 Mediterranean-style mansion—into a performing asset, the Somers are living and loving the country life.

 

Local regulations preclude their calling Rock Hall an inn, though it certainly feels like one. Stella’s description is as good as any for an intimate, upscale retreat where guests bedding down in four master suites, each with a fireplace, can party like it’s 1928. There’s a synthetic-grass tennis court with ball machine beside a Gatsby-esque stone gazebo; a seventy-five-foot-long heated swimming pool, outdoor Jacuzzi and pool house; an on-site hiking trail; a billiard room and a game room with pinball, table-tennis, and foosball; two pianos located in the living and sitting rooms; a nine-seat screening room with a popcorn machine (for first-run movies on DVD that guests bring up from New York City); and a small, ad hoc showcase for boho-chic items Stella picks up on her travels.

 

The property’s landscape, an arborist’s Eden filled with mature specimen trees, including the tallest Frasier fir in Connecticut, is thought to be a collaboration between Mizner and the firm of Frederick Law Olmsted. Though the property feels secluded, there’s WiFi and cellphone service (not always a given in the Berkshires), along with a baker’s dozen of discounts at local attractions for spa treatments, kayaking, horseback riding, carriage and hot air balloon rides, and at cultural venues such as Tanglewood, Jacob’s Pillow, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Warner Stage Company, and the Connecticut Art Trail.

 

Priced commensurate with other luxury B&Bs, Rock Hall’s room rates (between $240 and $320 and up per night) seem a small price to pay for all these sinfully rich perks. “At the end of the road is a [golf] driving range, so I thought we might put a putting green here,” Michael says, pointing past the pool, blueberry patch, and vegetable garden to the wildflower meadow down the hill.

 

Though unlikely innkeepers, the Somers seem to have the panache to pull it off. Raised in Queens, New York, Michael earned an MBA and enjoyed a long and successful career on Wall Street. He’s an avid foodie and an accomplished cook who mastered the art of the soufflé while still in middle school. He’s also a design maven, whose (pre-Stella) Tribeca apartment was featured in Private New York, a book about city interiors.

 

Stella, who grew up on a family farm in New Jersey, holds degrees in cinema studies, public administration, and interior design, and has been a successful knitwear designer, marketing analyst, residential space designer, antiques dealer, and shop owner; she founded and now heads two companies: Byzantia, a line of fine jewelry handmade in Istanbul; and the Artfull Boxer, which creates plexiglass centerpieces containing custom arrangements themed to special occasions and charity events.

 

Stella masterminded the transformation of Rock Hall’s interiors and oversees stylistic amenities, while Michael presides over the day-to-day operations and kitchen. Themed to the mansion’s Mediterranean style and served with strong coffee brewed in a French press (B&B owners, take note), Rock Hall’s morning repast emphasizes fare from local growers and purveyors, including a frittata du jour containing what’s good and fresh in the garden and market, house-cured salmon gravlax, artisanal breads, an onion and tomato compote, fresh fruit, jams, and an assortment of cheeses, including Berkshire Blue and Monterey Chèvre.

 

Staying at Rock Hall makes one realize what a shame it is that some B&Bs only serve one meal a day. Michael makes up for that by offering a complimentary afternoon cocktail or winetasting with hors d’oeuvres—savory tidbits, such as pita bread, hummus, tabouleh, Kalamata olives, dolma, yogurt drizzled with olive oil, and pistachio-studded lamb kofta adapted from Hamdi, Stella’s favorite Istanbul eatery. “Some guests never want to leave for dinner,” Michael quips. “We have to watch out for that.”

 

Rock Hall’s modern day revival has included restoring a wall of mirrored closet doors, which create a three-way mirror when opened, and the refurbishing of what might be one of the world’s first surround showers, a marble enclosure with an elaborate fretwork of pipes with sprays above and around the person standing within. It also includes a ream of reproduction turn-of-the-century Arts and Crafts and Art Nouveau wallpapers with naturalistic themes—dragonflies, birds, bees, and stylized floral motifs—winnowed from the hundreds that Stella considered.

 

In the living room, Corinthian columns with gilded capitals rise to a heavily beamed ceiling, gilt sconces gleam, and coffered chestnut paneling, lightened during the restoration, is the color of dark honey; the mantel, an early use of concrete molded to look like carved limestone, resembles something looted from a European castle. Radiating from this central space are a formal dining room, two sitting rooms, and a rock-walled sunroom; behind the dining room, a butler’s pantry leads to the kitchen, a servants’ dining room, and a rock-walled mudroom called the “servants’ porch” where tennis rackets and riding boots lend the air of an old estate.

 

Whereas others might have installed a Sub-Zero in the kitchen, the Somers family fitted a refrigeration unit into the turn-of-the-century, tin-lined, oak-doored, walk-in icebox, which once required regular deliveries of ice. They also kept the original diamond-paned, leaded glass windows and brilliant stained glass window in the formal staircase, installed sometime in the 1970s after the original was shattered. “In the sixties, Rock Hall was owned by two brothers who were doctors,” Stella explains. “It was abandoned for ten years, and squatters moved in. Then, a group of five bachelors bought it, and it was a party house for the next three decades.” Considering  its past, it’s amazing that so much of the estate’s original fabric remains, both inside and out.

 

Just south of the house, at the edge of the lawn, a rhododendron grove shelters a Gilded Era, human-sized statue of Pan, the horned, satyr-like Greek god—reveler in the wild landscape, protector of shepherds, pursuer of nymphs, player of pipes, the prototypical devil-may-care boy. Not far away, resonating with Pan’s musical inclinations, the baby grand piano in the living room displays sheet music dating to the time when Addison Mizner cavorted with George Gershwin and Irving Berlin. Rock Hall feels like a place that was always intended for good times, a place of madcap house parties, luxurious linens, sumptuous meals, impeccable tennis whites, and delectable chocolate martinis. The fledgling innkeepers are always looking for something new and good to add to the mix.

 

“The main thing,” Michael Somers says, “is to make guests feel special.” [SEPTEMBER 2009]

 

Gladys Montgomery is a contributing editor to Berkshire Living and editor of Berkshire Living Home+Garden.

 

THE GOODS

Rock Hall
19 Rock Hall Rd.
Colebrook, Conn.

www.19rockhallroad.com